Yet another field of expertise has been wiped out by some steel pincers—strawberry-pickers. Japan's robot detects which berries are at least 80 per cent red, and picks them gently off the vine.

It's being trained to pick other forms of berries, but if the 'bot gets to the point where it can be released safely into the wilds of strawberry farms, it'll supposedly reduce harvest time by 40 per cent. That means fewer jobs for humans, and even more 'bots handling our sweet little bombs of juice. The future is definitely mechanical—and doomed. [DigInfo via Technabob]